Zendesk offers the ability to set separate authentication policies for agents vs end users. This helps you secure your Zendesk by allowing you to create a more strict authentication policy for agents while still providing easy access to your customers and end users.
With this functionality, you can...
- Set different password policies for agents vs end users.
- Set different authentication methods for agents vs end users (e.g. Google sign-in for agents, Zendesk sign-in for end users)
- Restrict your agents to sign in with only one authentication method that you choose: username + password, Google, or SSO (SAML or JWT).
You will only be able to select a single authentication mechanism for agents. If you select SSO with IP restrictions, your agents will be allowed to sign in with Zendesk credentials outside of the IP range.
- Enable SSO for only agents, or only end users, or both.
You will not be able to select different SSO configurations for end users vs. agents if you select SSO for both.
You can set up both JWT and SAML, designating the primary SSO mechanism for Zendesk redirection
Security settings that pertain to all users, such as IP restrictions and SSL, can be found in the Security (
) section of Admin Center.
Sign-in page
If SSO is enabled only for end users, they are taken directly to the SSO sign-in page. Agents have to navigate to the /access/normal URL to sign in using their Zendesk account credentials.
If SSO is enabled for agents and not end users, a link called "I am an Agent" is displayed on the sign-in page. Clicking this link takes the agent directly to the SSO sign-in page.
15 Comments
We have both SSO enabled for agents and customers. We want to use SAML for our agents and JWT for our customers. If we setup JWT to be the default mechanism, our Azure AD SAML integration is no longer working. When we setup JWT as default, logout url is no longer working for JWT. What should be the proper configuration?
Thanks,
Hey Jonathan!
Great question, the trick is to enable both, make the one you want to use for end-users the primary one using the SSO switch that appears when you enable both SAML and JWT, and finally you create a button in your Help Center called "Sign in for agents" that will point to the Login URL for agents :)
Hi,
I do not get the following:
We use ADFS, does this mean that I can only have one Relying party definition and that I have to send the role admin/agent/user via ADFS. So all values on both SSO (admin+agent, end user) settings under security have to be the same?
Best
Martin
Hi Martin,
You can set up SSO with ADFS (see this article if you haven't already) for both agents and end-users, and you can even map custom roles (more on that here.) You don't need to set up multiple relying party trust identifiers, you just need to be able to tell Zendesk which people are agents, either by sending that from ADFS when they log in or having a Zendesk admin set that manually in the agent interface. If you don't want to map roles from ADFS to Zendesk, users who sign in who don't exist yet in Zendesk will be marked end-users. The Zendesk security settings will be the same in this case for both agents and end-users.
Hopefully I understood your question correctly. You can always send a ticket to support@zendesk.com if you need to talk more about your specific use-case.
Thanks!
Hi, yes that totally explains it. Thanks for the clarification.
We have agents login via Microsoft Office 365, via the I am an Agent link on the regular login. We want to enable SSO/JWT for end users, but when we turn this on, we no longer have access to the I am an Agent link. Is there a direct link to login as an Agent via Office 365 that redirects to the agent's dashboard? As of now we are planning on keeping the Zendesk Auth as a back up to SSO but the backup page https://<ourdomain>.zendesk.com/access/normal, doesn't have the "I am an Agent" link either.
Hey David,
Your agents should be able to navigate to subdomain.zendesk.com/agent to navigate to the Support login page for agents.
Are you experiencing anything different on your end?
Brett,
That did the trick. I must have missed that link in the documentation and the one on the login page before implementing SSO was a direct link to MS.
Thanks,
David
Happy to help David :)
Great question, the trick is to enable both, make the one you want to use for end-users the primary one using the SSO switch that appears when you enable both SAML and JWT, and finally you create a button in your Help Center called "Sign in for agents" that will point to the Login URL for agents :)
This does not seem to work. Pointing a link to the SSO login for agents just redirects to the JWT login.
Hey there Frank — for your new link "Sign in for agents" - are you hyperlinking to SUBDOMAIN.zendesk.com/agent ?
I believe that should redirect to the appropriately specified authentication strategy. If you're still having trouble, plesae do reach out to our support team, and share the link to the page where you've created the new button, and to where you're hyperlinking?
Thank you very much!
Dr. J, thanks for responding.
I'll just say that with JWT set as Primary, when I put subdomain.zendesk.com/agent in a browser, it automatically goes to the authentication screen for the JWT method. In our case, this is a corporate app for end users. Even when I hit the Azure Application SSO URL directly, ZD still redirects me to the JWT sign-in.
The only way to get this working is to change SAML to Primary but when I do that, end users have no way to sign in to the help center via JWT. So something seems broken here.
Hi there Frank! - yep, you're 100% on the mark, as there can only be one default SSO method selected. If you're seeing that behavior, then it's likely something is a bit amiss. What I've reccommended to similar users in the past is to have two sign in buttons (if needed), something like:
(there may be something in your implementation here, as that shouldn't redirect to us, unless the user is authenticated fully, and you're sending a "return-to" command with authentication.) My guess, is that the Azure app is returning you to the Help Center as an unauthenticated agent, which then triggers the JWT customer authentication.
If you authenticate the agent at Azure, and specify an agent dashboard URL (or any desried), it shouldn't catch you in the loop.
If you're still having trouble after reviewing this, please click on the Get help button, our team would be delighted to assist!
Dr. J,
The issue is that no matter what URL I'm using, it redirects to the JWT login. For example subdomain.zendesk.com/agents is redirecting to the help center. It may be a configuration issue on our end where everything seems to redirect to the help center (which in turn goes to the JWT end user login). If so, I need to know where to go to fix this.
I opened up a case (with the lowest priority) already and I've gotten no response.
Thanks Frank - the team will be in touch soon to help with this, thank you for your patience, and for opening a ticket, sir!
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